National 5 History 2017-18

I cannot cope lol. I'm finding it so hard to study

Well I'm averaging 100% so far this year so I'm pretty confident but I have a prelim for History the day after we come back from the Easter Holidays. My teacher is brilliant though and I'm actually looking forward to starting my revision on Friday!

Sorry to hear you're finding it difficult Which aspects of the course are you struggling with- is it a particular topic, or type of question, study methods, or something else? I can't provide any specific answers having not done the course, but if you can give some more detail, maybe someone else will be able to help

yeah mainly study methods and the bloody Evaluate the Usefullness question

Hey everyone,

I've not seen a Nat5 History thread so I thought I would make one -

What topics is everyone doing, how's Revision, do you feel ready for the exam in 2 weeks?

we’re doing Atlantic Slave Trade, Era of the Great War and Free at Last. i really enjoyed history this year and it’s safe to say that it’s my favourite subject! i feel a little confident about the exam (tbh the only exam i’m confident about) as we did a prelim two weeks ago which i got 100% in! it was totally unexpected but i was really happy.

how about you? i’m interested to see what other topics everyone has been doing this year x

(if anyone would like to ask for any help on question layouts etc. i’ll be more than happy to help the best i can!)

Does anyone mind explaining to me what a 'developed' point would be for describe/explain questions? I sometimes struggle to come up with 6 separate points for explain questions so if I can figure out how to do developed points that would be great.

if this makes no sense i am very sorry, but this is how i see it.

well, for explain questions we were taught to only do three points but develop them. i’ll copy out an example of one i did for the Atlantic Slave Trade recently.

Explain why it was so difficult for slaves to resist on plantations. (6)

‘There were many revolts on plantations, but some were very difficult for slaves to carry out for a number of reasons. (don’t think this is necessary but i like to do a little intro anyways)

-Many plantation owners had weapons (1, K). This meant that it was difficult for slaves to revolt because they feared that they would get shot if they tried to run or fight (1, P).

-A lot of slaves were too weak to leave (1, K). Because of the poor living conditions, slaves often got ill which rendered them too weak to revolt. (1, P)

-The punishments for acting out were severe (1, K). In some plantations, trying to run or revolt could get you branded with a hot iron or a large number of whippings, which provoked fear in slaves and made it more difficult to revolt. (1, P)’

you could also make this more simple and follow a template that can be used for any explain question.

‘One reason for -topic in question- is -the first reason/point/factor- (1 mark for a point). This is because -things that the factor achieved in terms of the question- (1 mark for developing the point).’ and do this three times in total for 6/6.

basically, i think a developed point is for understanding why this is significant in terms of the questions. the first mark you get is for essentially describing what happens eg ‘One reason for the success of the abolitionists was the work done by William Wilberforce.’, and the other is explaining why this point is important for the question eg ‘This is because William Wilberforce campaigned tirelessly in Parliament for decades in the name of the abolitionists, proposing bills to abolish the slave trade’.

edit: i don’t know how to apply this to describe questions unfortunately, as we usually just do four short points as it is quicker. sorry!

i have no idea if i have explained this correctly but this is what i got from the way my teacher explained things. i hope this makes sense and helps you :-)

good luck for wednesday! x

Thanks, that's quite helpful. That's kinda what I'd been doing anyway but I didn't want to risk doing that in case it only got me 3 marks.

One more thing though. The teacher at my school who is an sqa marker says that you have to explain why each point is relevant to the question to get the first mark (it is an explain question after all). In your examples you seem to be stating.

From what I've been taught and what you've said I think you need to state a reason and explain how it's relevant to the question and then for a developed point say a related fact.

e.g.
slaves only had simple weapons which meant they struggled to resist because they couldn't fight effectively against their owners. (1) Slaves were also afraid to get shot because many owners had guns. (1)

Idk whether I'm just getting confused between developing and explaining though. I'm seeing that teacher tomorrow so I'll ask him to clear that up a bit.

Good luck for Wednesday as well and for your other exams. Are you doing English tomorrow?

Thanks, that's quite helpful. That's kinda what I'd been doing anyway but I didn't want to risk doing that in case it only got me 3 marks.

One more thing though. The teacher at my school who is an sqa marker says that you have to explain why each point is relevant to the question to get the first mark (it is an explain question after all). In your examples you seem to be stating.

From what I've been taught and what you've said I think you need to state a reason and explain how it's relevant to the question and then for a developed point say a related fact.

e.g.
slaves only had simple weapons which meant they struggled to resist because they couldn't fight effectively against their owners. (1) Slaves were also afraid to get shot because many owners had guns. (1)

Idk whether I'm just getting confused between developing and explaining though. I'm seeing that teacher tomorrow so I'll ask him to clear that up a bit.

Good luck for Wednesday as well and for your other exams. Are you doing English tomorrow?